How do you manage scenery?

[pmb 5,138]

There are limits. I have 1.5 TB of (mostly) airports from all over the world, Freeware and Payware alike. I like to explore varied regions.

The sim simply stalled upon startup when I had them active (accidentally) at the same time. I had to kill it after 20 min.

I couldn't live without the Addons Linker, where I have those addons thoroughly classified.

Kind regards, Michael

[Sethos 4,497]

I don't. Install what I buy / download, leave it there, done.

No way in hell am I sitting there using third party software to enable / disable stuff, having to figure out in advance what I'm doing, "Oh no I disabled something I actually want to fly". No thanks.

[Virtual-Chris 682]

Sorry, I forgot the name of the tool... I called it add-on manager, but it's add-on linker that I use (like most of you).

It's interesting that there's a mix of folks who keep everything installed, and then those who, like me, move scenery in that's relevant.

For those of you keeping everything installed in your community folder, do you find startup times are impacted horribly?

ps. I can't wait for the new World Hub... once that gets some critical mass of mods added, it should hopefully reduce the burden of scenery management somewhat.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Virtual-Chris

[RALF9636 1,986]

I also use Addonlinker, but only to keep addons in my own folder structure. I leave everything activated all the time. I recently compared loading times with and without all my addon scenery (several hundred GB) and the difference was negligible, less than 10%. So for me having to manage all my addons on every start would take longer than the additional loading time.

What does make a significant difference though is a ton of simobjects like AIG and GAIST. So if you don't need those on certain flights it might be worth deactivating them.

 

1 hour ago, pmb said:

There are limits. I have 1.5 TB of (mostly) airports from all over the world, Freeware and Payware alike. I like to explore varied regions.

The sim simply stalled upon startup when I had them active (accidentally) at the same time. I had to kill it after 20 min.

 

When did you do that? If it has been a while, maybe try it again. I think MSFS has changed the way it loads addons on startup recently.

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by RALF9636

[turbomax 3,299]

1 hour ago, Sethos said:

having to figure out in advance what I'm doing, "Oh no I disabled something I actually want to fly"

I normally plan a flight using world map. therefore I know in advance where I am going to be. for me it is just 2 more mouse clicks.

[pmb 5,138]

12 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

When did you do that? If it has been a while, maybe try it again. I think MSFS has changed the way it loads addons on startup recently.

Maybe a year ago (with less addons at that time). But I am tempted to try it again.

Kind regards, Michael

[cianpars 1,174]

I keep all of my UK scenery, object libraries, welovevfr, fsltl, pylons, etc. in my community folder.  Outside of my community folder I have a folder which contains a sub folder for each country that I visit.  For big countries (e.g. USA) I have sub folders for each state.

All my sceneries for other countries are prefixed ZZ or where I sometimes explore some countries together (e.g. Austria, Switzerland and Germany) maybe ZW or ZV.

All of my sceneries including the community folder are backed up in individual zip files on my spare 1TB NVME drive.

If I want to fly around California, for example, I place all of my California sceneries (prefixed ZZ) into my community folder and when I have finished I take them out again (which is very easy due to their prefixes).

My 2TB NVME drive containing only msfs and addons totals approx 1.75 TB.

I have never used an addon linker though have been recommended to many times.

Edited August 15, 2023 by cianpars

[Dave_YVR 995]

2 hours ago, edpatino said:

But please remember, tons of addons concurrently installed will slow down the MSFS start-up process considerably.

Sure, they will increase load times to an extent but at the same time opening add-ons linker and picking out then disabling what you don't want imo takes longer.

Think of it, you'd have to disable quite a few add-ons to shave start times down by even 20 seconds and to do that will most likely take longer than 20 seconds to accomplish. 

I think I timed it not long ago and the difference for me between NO add-ons and the 400-500 that I have is about a minute difference in load time. It's just not worth my while to try and nit pick it from there. 

Edited August 15, 2023 by Dave_YVR

[St Mawgan 1,404]

I keep everything in my Community folder permanently, scenery and aircraft. I don't start MSFS with any location in mind, I don't even think about it until I get to the map. Never seen the point of any external linker and MSFS starts up and gets to the map screen as quickly now as it did when I first got it when there was nothing in my Community folder at all. Absolutely no difference. 

[edpatino 1,975]

34 minutes ago, Dave_YVR said:

Sure, they will increase load times to an extent but at the same time opening add-ons linker and picking out then disabling what you don't want imo takes longer.

Think of it, you'd have to disable quite a few add-ons to shave start times down by even 20 seconds and to do that will most likely take longer than 20 seconds to accomplish. 

I think I timed it not long ago and the difference for me between NO add-ons and the 400-500 that I have is about a minute difference in load time. It's just not worth my while to try and nit pick it from there. 

That's where the use of presets in the Addons Linker is very important

[RALF9636 1,986]

11 minutes ago, edpatino said:

That's where the use of presets in the Addons Linker is very important

Still it is something you have to do before every start of the sim. And you need to maintain these presets. You have to redefine the presets everytime you install a new scenery. To me that is an unnecessary effort. I don't care if my loading time is one minute longer or shorter. I use that time to do something else than staring at the loading screen anyway: prepare my flightplan and charts or make a coffee.

Have you tested recently how much loading time you gain by using your presets compared to having everything activated?

 

[regis9 4,033]

I use addon linker with my airports grouped into regions so I can activate them based on where I’ll be flying.

I also have a custom Google map that I enter all of my airports into so I can look at a glance to see what I have to help me decide where I want to fly.  I group them into payware, freeware and Asobo enhanced.  

[Ixoye 1,837]

I have a temp map in my Add-on linker airport directory where I put temporary airports I visit on special long trips, in that way I can easy delete them so they doesn't take up space unnecessarily.

Edited August 16, 2023 by Ixoye

[Max Kraus 341]

I'm kind of in the minority I guess in that I've never used AL and just throw everything into the Community folder. I have a lot of addons but I think now I have reached the point where there's only a new addon going in every so often if I see something interesting. Never had an issue really with organisation. Space wise, I run a 2TB Samsung and it's only 25% full so there's no disk-space reasons to try anything different. 

[Dave_YVR 995]

Just to confirm my theory, I started up MSFS with my Community folders disabled. First start naturally takes a bit longer as just like with P3d before, the sim has to reindex all of the changes you have made by disabling scenery and addons. The actual time isn't important, but on the second start still with no addons, it was 14 seconds faster than the first. Next, I enable all of my addons again with Addon linker and start it up.

 Extra time required to start everything was 36 seconds longer than with nothing. So the time you take to open addon linker which itself takes about 6-10 seconds and then to fiddle and disable or manage presets etc one would very quickly run out of any time saved and it would start taking longer than starting with it all enabled. 
 Just my 2 cents, but whatever floats you boat. 🤜🤛

Edited August 15, 2023 by Dave_YVR